to the Messianism of Samaritan traditions. According to Boismard, one of the backgrounds to John’s Gospel is the Samaritan tradition, in which two Messiahs are prophesied: “Son of David,” and “Son of Joseph.” “Joseph” in Samaritan tradition is the son of Jacob in Genesis, who was a savior of the Israelites.
Many scholars currently conduct studies on the Graeco-Roman background of the New Testament.28 They suggest that studies on Rome, Roman emperors and the Imperial cult could be quite closely related to the New Testament studies. In particular, Frederick W. Danker’s research29 on the benefactor, because the word, “benefactor,” was used as a title of Roman emperors and deities at that time. Danker uses data derived especially from Graeco-Roman inscriptions in which the benefactor-pattern is reasonably certain, to determine whether particular sections of the New Testament that suggest adoption of the Graeco-Roman benefactor model do in fact connote such to a reasonable degree of certainty. He examines particularly the ideas of ἀρετή (excellence), ἀνηρ ἀγαθός (good man), and καλοκἀγαθός. He proposes that the ideas are common in concept and meaning, and are synonymous alternative expressions of benefactor. The concept of benefactor seemed to be applied to the kingship of the Johannine Jesus.30
Some scholars31 convey the knowledge of the Jewish and Hellenistic background by conducting their research on the shepherd-king motif in the Gospel of John. The book entitled The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context32 edited by Beutler and Fortna is an important one to consider when studying the shepherd-king motif.
In addition, recently, some scholars have pursued a fuller understanding of Jesus in his religious, social, political, and economic context. David R. Kaylor attempts to delineate the political elements of Jesus’ ministry and teaching in his book entitled Jesus the Prophet. He intends to interpret the political dimensions of Jesus, not to reconstruct a political Jesus. An attempt to explore Jesus in a political context, which is closely connected with the religious one, in the Gospel of John has its usefulness, although the Gospel explains much more beyond the political dimension of Jesus. It is necessary, therefore, to have some understanding of the religious-political context to explore what the Fourth Gospel wants to reveal about Jesus.
David Rensberger, in his book Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, argues the possibility of such in relation to Christology and politics by the rediscovery of its social and historical settings. He intends to show “that in the late first century CE, when Jewish and Christian theology and politics could seldom be totally separated, the author of the Gospel had a distinctive conception of what those connotations were.”33 He, finally, argues that the Johannine Gospel seems to support a theology of liberation because of its overruling Christology. Accordingly, he remarks that this Gospel is “the product of an oppressed community.”34
Jerome H. Neyrey in his book An Ideology of Revolt focuses on the cultural system or perception of the cosmos reflected in the christological statements of the Gospel of John. He focuses also on the conflict and competition with other colonized Jewish groups and within the Johannine community itself.
In 2002, the book entitled John and Postcolonialism35 was published to examine the making and distribution of power on earthly spaces by tracing the journeys within the Johannine narrative. In this collection of essays, some authors show how the Gospel of John approves of certain travellers invading foreign spaces and how these foreign peoples can reread the Gospel to support decolonization.36 Some authors seek to identify the exclusive boundaries, while others seek to open up closed boundaries so that all travellers can descend from heaven to earth. Still others trace the journeys and places occupied by women in the Johannine story and in colonial settings. Some authors highlight how colonial history has changed the reading practices of certain communities, while others read this Gospel in order to understand the complex power relations that characterize readers as the colonizers, the collaborators, and the colonized.
Particularly, Musa W. Dube, in her article entitled “Reading for Decolonization,”37 attempts to highlight some of the main imperial ideological constructions of the Johannine narrative. Her hypothesis on reading the Johannine texts for decolonization seems to be subjected to the hypothesis on “the Bible as imperializing texts.” She seems to admit a premise of postcolonial perspective on Imperialism: Imperialism pursues power, mostly violence and military power, to dominate foreign spaces. In addition, Dube, in her article “Savior of the World but not of This World,”38 points out where her reading of the Gospel of John differs, i.e., in refusing to ignore the Roman imperial setting in the Gospel, refusing to abstract the biblical texts from modern and contemporary international structures, and refusing to read the biblical text in isolation from other works of literature. Dube’s aim is to highlight colonizing strategies and their similarity to the Gospel of John. She argues, “the exalted space of Jesus as a savior of the world, who is not of this world, is shown to be a colonizing ideology that claims power over all other places and peoples of the earth—one which is not so different from other constructions in secular literature.”39 However, we need to ask if the Bible, in particular the Gospel of John, is, in fact, an imperializing text. The Johannine Jesus does not justify a colonizing ideology because he rejects the logic of power that contains violence. Rather, the Johannine Gospel describes Jesus as a decolonizer who attempts to liberate the world from the darkness with love, forgiveness, freedom, service, and peace.
Richard A. Horsley highlights in his book, Jesus and Empire, that it is important to recognize the relationship of the Gospels and the Roman Empire in order to research the identity of Jesus. That is, he highlights the political aspect in the study of Jesus. His remark has much in common with an academic trend of Johannine study, which emphasizes the relation of this Gospel and the Roman Empire. Horsley points out the similarity between Jesus’ movement of the kingdom of God and the postcolonial agenda, “recent and current anti-colonial (or anti-imperial) movements in which the withdrawal (or defeat) of the colonizing power is the counterpart and condition of the colonized people’s restoration to independence and self-determination.”40 Meaningfully, the judgmental aspect of the Kingdom of God and the eschatological teaching of Jesus indicate emancipation from the foreign power, the Roman Empire. His view is particularly linked with the Johannine new world where the Johannine Jesus reigns as the king. That is, the functions of the Kingdom of God, as Horsley points out, are those of the Johannine Jesus. The Fourth Gospel also implies emancipation of the people from the darkness. This emancipation from the darkness is linked to a constructive alternative, the Johannine new world where all people can live in love, forgiveness, freedom, service, and peace.
Most recently, Warren Carter surveys the central issues of the Gospel of John in his book, John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist. He introduces a consideration of the Gospel’s negotiation of the Roman imperial world. He notes that Jesus’ ministry reveals God’s life-giving purposes for all people, including those marginalized by the hierarchical imperial social structure.41 He also notes that in the inclusion of such people in John’s community, John thus interprets traditions about Jesus in relation to Rome’s world. He argues that the Johannine new world as God’s life-giving and just purpose is shown to be contrary to and resistant to the Roman Empire. Namely, the Roman Empire is revealed
